Tuesday, October 19, 2010

I mentioned in my last post that I picked up The Star Wars Sourcebook during my last trip to Gary's. This is a supplement to West End Games 1st edition Star Wars RPG. It is in really good shape for being printed in 1987.

It has some really cool information in it. It has lists of various starfighters and other starships. It has info on droids, aliens, lightsabers and other various Star Wars goodies. My favorite part, however, is the stats for many of the main characters of the original trilogy. It was only on my second read through of the character section that I realized something:

Yoda does not have the lightsaber skill.

I didn't notice it the first time but it jumped out at me the second time. He's got the melee skill and the melee parry skill but not lightsaber. Obi-Wan has the lightsaber skill. Vader has a slightly better lightsaber skill. Even Luke, who's skills are listed as of the Battle of Yavin, has the lightsaber skill at 4D+1. But Yoda doesn't have it listed. At first I thought it might be a typo or an oversight. But it is my understanding that WEG's material had to pass muster with Lucas' folks. I don't think they would've missed it. So I discarded that idea.

Now, I've been reading various "what-if" threads about the history of the Star Wars universe based only on the original Star Wars film or the first trilogy. An examples is here. So, if Yoda doesn't have the lightsaber skill, at least a portion of the prequels don't make sense (big surprise, some may say) and the original conception of the characters was much different.

I know, I know, this isn't a canon source or anything but it is very interesting to me.

Sunday, March 7, 2010

As I have mentioned before my son wants to role-play in the Star Wars universe. So I got my hands on West End Games D6 Star Wars 2nd Edition Rpg. And it left me cold. After reading various posts on RPG.net, I determined that in my ignorance I had purchased the wrong edition of the game and sought out a copy of the 1st Edition. Ahhhh, much better. Easy, straightforward and even the perceived shortcomings of the game that I had read about didn’t bother me.

But…

As easy as the game is I kind of wanted something a bit simpler. So I cast about (immediately discarding any thought of using WotC’s Star Wars Saga Edition for this purpose) and hit upon Mini-Six. Wow, all the goodness of D6 distilled to its essence. Nice. I would have to throw together rules for dealing with the Force but that shouldn’t be a problem.

But…

I contemplate Barbarians of Lemuria a lot. It is probably the game I think about the most. And not just because of some of the illustrations. I mean, it is such a simple game. So very straightforward, easy to grasp and very flexible. So flexible in fact that there have been a couple of spinoffs for it. The similar but more traditional sword & sorcery setting found in Legends of Steel. The apocalyptic glories of Barbarians of the Aftermath. And the full automatic firepower of Dogs of War. I don’t have BotA or Dogs of War yet but plan on purchasing them soon. Yes, the BoL engine is very flexible.

Hey, wait!

Could I, perhaps, cobble together a Star Wars variant of BoL?

I actually think this would be very easy. It may have been done already but I’m too lazy to search around and find out right now.

How easy? Let’s try to stat up Luke as a beginning character as we are introduced to him in the first movie. (No, not episode 1. The first movie. The real Star Wars.)

Luke Skywalker
Young farm boy destined for fame

Attributes
Strength 0
Agility 2
Mind 1
Appeal 1

Combat Abilities
Brawl 0
Melee 0
Ranged 2
Defense 2

Careers
Water Farmer 1
Droid Mechanic 1
Pilot 2

BoonsForce Sensitive

Now, you can quibble with the details. I just whipped this up as an example to show how it can be done. He was already a pilot of some skill. I mean, you don’t just jump into an X-Wing and fly off. I didn’t really know what to do for combat abilities so I just threw some numbers down. If someone has a better example of Luke at this age, I’d be interested in seeing it.

Now, at the end of Star Wars he would’ve gained a level in melee combat and gained Jedi 0 as a career because of his training with old Ben. He is just starting to get in touch with his Jedi-ness but is still very much a neophyte. He has just enough power to help guide his shot into the Death Star (along with his piloting skill) and to use Force telekinesis to get his lightsaber at the beginning of The Empire Strikes Back. He can use it but it is still a strain.

I’d have to create a list of boons and flaws. Two obvious ones would be Force Sensitive and Turned to the Dark Side. The Force Sensitive boon would be a prerequisite for the Jedi career. And I think I would probably steal WEG's idea of Dark Side Points. Although many would think it fun to be a Sith and wreck havoc throughout the space-lanes I think that, for my son, showing that there are consequences for evil actions would be a good thing. If you turn to the Dark Side as a result of your Dark Side points you lose control of your character. The character becomes an NPC. And as he commented about Dark Side points in WEG’s Star Wars, “I think only Jedi should gain Dark Side points.” I have a tendency to agree so I think I would use that as a rule.

One aspect of this idea that I really like, and shows the strength of BoL’s career system, is Force powers. You don’t need to have a long list of Force powers. The player can simply propose an action, the GM decides whether it is appropriate or not, and determines a difficulty for it. The weakness in WEG’s Star Wars of having to roll multiple times for certain Force powers would be nicely circumvented.

Lightsaber combat would be easy too. I’d give Jedi character the option to substitute their Jedi career number in place of their melee number. The same with dodging/deflecting blaster bolts.

I’m actually rather excited about these ideas and may develop them further.

Edit: Hey! I just remembered. WotC is giving up the Star Wars license. Maybe Mr. Washbourne could acquire it and produce a Star Wars version of BoL!